According to official polls, Putin is on track to win more than 80% of the vote, so he could achieve his biggest electoral victory since coming to power in 2000. In order to attract as many people as possible to the polling stations, the Russian authorities have put more or less strange prizes up for grabs.

While everyone knows the results of the election in the Russian Federation, where Vladimir Putin is set to win his fifth term on Sunday, the authorities are aiming for a record turnout that will allow him to demonstrate massive support for Russia’s war against Ukraine.

The electoral body announced that almost a third of the 112 million eligible Russians had already voted on Friday.

The generosity of Russian authorities at the polls took many forms, according to POLITICO, which analyzed the prizes promised to those who stamped a ballot in Russia’s presidential election, which began on Friday and ends on Sunday.

In the Chelyabinsk region, a local hospital promised voters a free blood test and even an on-site consultation with a gynecologist, while in other polling stations they only distributed pancakes.

On Friday, the first day of voting, state media reported that in at least 400 localities, turnout at polling stations was 100%.

When the voting started, messages started to appear about the lucky winners of the prize draw. In Siberia, a maid said she won an apartment, and a policewoman won a car.

But not all rewards for attendance were material. In the Siberian city of Tyumen, a polling station promised voters the opportunity to immortalize themselves in the image of Tucker Carlson, the first Westerner to interview Putin since the war began.

More precisely, a life-size cardboard cutout of an American journalist.